There are many conflicting views on net neutrality that are being given when disputing this topic. There are two main analogies that are given when presenting their point on the matter. Those in favor of net neutrality usually give the following analogy. Taking away net neutrality means that companies with more resources will have access to a “faster lane”, giving them an unreasonable advantage over small companies that can’t afford the faster lane. Those against net neutrality will give you the following analogy instead. Having net neutrality is equivalent to having a truck pay the same as a motorcycle at a toll road even though trucks most definitely contribute to more tear and wear to the road than the motorcycle.
These two views are what contribute mostly to the discussion and they stem from a different understanding on the issue. From reading all the articles, it seems like there’s a problem of oversimplification or simply a problem of people not correctly defining the issue. Here I will try to express both possible interpretations.
The first interpretation is that given by those who defend net neutrality. This interpretation is that companies will provide limited access to resources to small companies. So, if people can access Netflix, a company with enough resources to pay the premium service, at up to 1000 KB/s, a small content provider with less resources may only be accessed to up to 100 KB/s for example. This means that small companies have a very slim chance of competing against larger companies. In other words, this interpretation means that ISP’s limit download speeds of consumers.
The other interpretation is that companies will have to pay money based on their upload speed. In other words, if Netflix can pay for a total upload speed of 100 TB/s, since they have a large number of users, this would get distributed over a large number of people. Lets say they have 1 million users. Then each user would get on average a download speed of 100 KB/s. Then, lets say a smaller company has a base of 10,000 users. To match Netflix’s users’ download speed they would only need to purchase a service with 1 MB/s upload speed, which should be considerably cheaper. With this interpretation, removing Net Neutrality would actually give smaller companies an advantage of cheaper internet access while they build their user base.
This distinction hasn’t been made clear by those discussing net neutrality online, but it’s a significant one. They each have very different effects on the market. My position on the issue will depend on how this is addressed. Ultimately, the goal should be to protect consumers and provide them access to a fair internet, which on this day and age has become a basic right which the government has a duty to protect.
One third issue is the possibility that ISP’s, many of which are also content providers, will be given preferential access to their resources. This is a very delicate topic with no clear solution. Here, however, anti-trust laws should come into effect. To protect fair competition among competitions, antitrust laws prohibit big companies with various services to give themselves an unfair advantage on the market. If it the case that content providers are giving themselves an unfair advantage, it is the case that legislation exists to protect other companies and consumers. This kind of laws are addressed on a case by case basis and while they don’t provide the strict regulation that previous Net Neutrality laws held, they give a window through which the problem may be addressed should it ever arise.